


Manyworlds

by bookofblueroses



Category: Chrono Cross
Genre: Alternate Identities, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Among many others - Freeform, Bodyswap, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Alternate Universes, Cat Puns, Cat/Human Hybrids, Character Death, Contemplation, Demihumans, Dissociation, FFXIV reference, Gen, Hopefully I got Harle's Franglais right, Identity, Identity Issues, Loss of Identity, My First Work in This Fandom, Radical Dreamers reference, Rebirth, Saving Marbule Ending, Short Story, Time Travel, Trippy, Very small implied drug mention, Yuletide, external identity, internal identity, mentions of eating mice, no one is currently using in story, the world of Chrono Cross is itself a trip though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28079568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookofblueroses/pseuds/bookofblueroses
Summary: In the dimensional distortion between time and space, one can lose oneself staring into the rainbow pools... or find oneself, or some combination of the two. Short fic for Yuletide 2020, Serge/Harle friendship/gen for the time being.
Relationships: Serge/Tsukuyomi | Harle, gen friendship/camaraderie
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Manyworlds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DeCarabas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeCarabas/gifts).



Nothing about this place, this _body_ felt familiar, safe, even _okay_ to any degree. 

The place itself looked as if it were the result of eating those mushrooms the traders would occasionally sneak into Arni - the ones Chief Radius told him never to eat and that he had grabbed a handful of once anyway, providing him with that slight reference for his physical surroundings now…

The body, though, had _no_ reference. A strength and speed of movement that almost terrified him with the capacity for even _accidental_ violence it contained, with the promise of intentional predation, intentional death he knew the being he had swapped with was more than capable of inflicting solely for amusement… a form that blended feline with humanoid…

“Are you lost in your own thoughts again, Moniseur Lynx?” She sat there next to him, at that odd frozen waterfall where he had sat down. “It iz not good. We have thingz zat must be done. You and I both do know, the longer you zpend in zis distortion-“

“Yes.” Speaking was still difficult for him - but he was, in this form, somehow more capable of it than he had once been. It was as if the connections between brain and mouth actually worked, again almost frighteningly well. His voice now had an undertone of menace, one that almost made him cringe at his own words.

“We should go.” She sprung to her feet, that otherworldly nature of her own body apparent as her body floated into standing - she was one of the shades, but also undeniably human. A _shade_ demihuman… a will o'wisp or ghost but _humanoid_ too…

But if he as a cat demihuman could exist, what was so _unusual_ about a being that was a fusion of two states of humanity?

“Where do you _want_ to _go_ ,” he asked. “Have we not done enough?”

“I do not know, but…zis place is boring. Plus, it was as if something called me to find you here, which meanz our raison d’ etre iz not yet accomplit.” She clapped her hands, then smiled at him. “It iz not like you to be zo… introspective.”

“What if I told you I was not the Moniseur Lynx you know.”

“Non, non. You are ze Moniseur Lynx. What happened in zat place, all it did was show you ze realité of our purpose. Of course finding out that you had to kill such a weak and helpless foe as her would have such an effect. Now look at yourself, you are ze same, you are still my Moniseur Lynx…”

 _Except I’m not,_ he thought as he looked down into the rainbow pool… which reflected back _that_ face. The face of the being that had tried to kill, no, _had_ killed him - as, no one could understand that they had swapped forms.

Inwardly he _knew_ , still, that he was _Serge_ \- yet, he also knew that inward knowledge only served the purpose of driving him toward the goal he now felt - to get out of this place, to retake the body he had once taken for granted - but wait, were those goals not the same, almost, as those that drove Lynx? 

Nonetheless, Harle was both correct and, for the moment, the only hope he had of escaping this world of his own mind for the moment, of clawing his way back to _some_ form of reality.

And really, what _did_ the form matter? Images swam through the rainbow pool - a traveling musician with a band of thieves, a high school student in a world that seemed entirely different, a predatory war machine in flesh that stacked bodies as collectibles, the liberator of all enslaved of the world and breaker of the yoke of Porre, a simple cat - and so many more, in both bodies and both faces and bodies and faces that only barely resembled them, all changed in their own ways through time and space…

But for now he had to accept the one he had. Even it bore choice and possibility, myriad paths even if he was the feared cat-demon - of course he could sit at the top of a pile of bodies as collectibles…

“But what fun would zat be?” Harle asked from beside him, and he was no longer sure if it was her, his own inner voice, or some combination thereof. 

He could try to get back to his own body - that path laid out as the one that was supposed to be, the “correct timeline,” but nothing was right, nor correct anymore…

“The people of Marbule will accept us. Let us give them their freedom…” He was not certain of this form and nothing was still right, nothing was still _okay_ , but this seemed like the path he would prefer - which he? Was this him asserting himself as Lynx, as Harle seemed to think - or his old self, finally speaking, finally _awakening_ as something other than a mere quiet fishing village boy dragged along on an adventure he barely understood? “But first, we must get out of here.”

“That iz very correct! If you stare into ze pool too long, you loze yourzelf. I know, Moniseur Lynx…” She patted his back with a light hand. “When I stared into eet, I saw many of myself az well. Ze one who waz ze shade zat made me, ze goddess of Fate itzelf! But… I do not wizh to be ze goddess. I wizh to be… me.”

“But, after one stares at the pool too long… deciding what ‘me,’ is…”

“Becomes tres dificult. Unlike ze humanz in normal time, we vill always have our optionz.” Harle sat up once again. “Maybe in anozer world I shall be Tsukuyomi and you, the warrior who fights me. Maybe in anozer world we vill both be kitty-cat. Maybe in anozer, juzt ordinary humanité, would zat not be tres bien?”

“For now… I am Moniseur Lynx.” Somehow, as they began to fight their way toward the exit, this _was_ right, his body did feel like his, and it _was_ okay. The strength, the instinct that felt so dangerous… he would need for the road ahead, after all, a mere human fisherman could not do what was needed to even free Marbule.

But it still distracted him a bit when he found himself _purring_ as their bodies took shape and form in the slightly familiar world of El Nido… and he craved the fish, the same fish that had once turned his nose from familiarity.

“Do not worry. I shall get you many many fishies, and some mouse stew too.” Harle smiled that odd smile again, and he found it, this time, comforting. “I think it best to ask the Arni chef, I do not want to be thrown out of ze Dragoon’z Glory again for asking! Ze squid-guts are fine, but _mice_ are disgusting? I do not underztand…”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like this story!


End file.
